


Above a Common Bound

by YourPalYourBuddy



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Mild Angst, Mild Sexual Content, Short & Sweet, Snapshots, Super Mild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 09:05:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11964195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourPalYourBuddy/pseuds/YourPalYourBuddy
Summary: In his arms, she twists around lazily and whaps him with a faceful of hair before going still again. Her breaths whuff when she exhales; he can feel them on his cheek. She scootches toward him.“Nat?” Sam whispers. She mumbles something, eyes still closed. “You awake?”She murmurs, “No,” and shifts slightly closer. Sam pulls her in and he falls asleep with his nose pressed to her hair and her hair smells like starlight._____________________Domestic SamNat, from Sam's POV. Snapshots and fluff.





	Above a Common Bound

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the Sam Wilson Birthday Bang happening on Tumblr :)

________________________

 

Sometimes they go flying, and those days are the best kind. They’re the ones where sunlight melts like his perfect sundaes, or the way her candles slip low late at night, or how it feels to hold each other’s hand. Like the little things.

They don’t use his wings, not with both of them; it’s a lot of trust in harnesses and throttles and honestly, he hides it well but the extra weight strains the machinery. It’s built for a single pilot, not two. Nat gets motion sick now and then too, anyway.

The sight of her in the pilot’s seat, hands confident on the controls, is better than the view below them. She’s guiding them gently over snow and mountains and clouds, but Sam takes his time looking at her.

She looks at him over her shoulder and smiles, just a little, and he kisses her throat where her neck and shoulder muscles meet.

____________

 

“Do you ever think,” Nat says, eyes on the newspaper, “about who we’d be without this?”

Sam frowns at the toast he’s buttering. Thinking. “Without what?”

She clears her throat and turns the page. “SHIELD. HYDRA. Or brainwashed assassins or missions or training regimens or tac gear, all of that.”

“You mean, who we’d be in another universe?”

“Yeah, or this one, even. If we weren’t the ones who had to save the day.”

He crunches on his toast thoughtfully, studying her. Nat’s still not looking at him.

Sam says, “I’d be a shop teacher,” and now she puts down the paper and turns toward him. She arches an eyebrow skeptically. He bites down a grin. “You know, welding, carpentry. Mechanics. All that. You’d be a world class gymnast heading to her second Olympics this year.”

“A shop teacher, huh?” He hands her some toast, and she takes a bite.

“Something like that, yeah. Something with my hands.”

Nat takes his hands then, drags her thumbs over the calluses on his fingers. She says, “I like your hands.”

____________

 

They’re watching the food channel when the phone rings. Nat protests when he goes to stand up, wrapping her arms tighter around his waist. He kisses her, and she lets him go.

The kitchen’s shadowed warmly from the living room TV. It flickers over Nat’s face, and for a moment Sam sees who she might’ve been without this.

He says into the phone, “Hello?”

“Sam,” his mother says. Her voice melts some sort of tension stuck underneath his sternum.

Sam leans against the arch separating the kitchen from the living room. Nat doesn’t look over, but her eyes crinkle in a way that tells him she picked up on his sudden calm.

“Mom,” he says, and now Nat buries a smile into a cushion.

“You’ve been back in D.C. for how long now?”

“Three months?” he says, and cringes.

“Three months,” his mom says, “and I have to find out from your brother that you’re seeing someone?”

He knocks the heel of his hand against his knee and Nat glances up at the movement. She quirks her eyebrows in a question, and Sam pulls a grimace.

“Gideon told you?” His mom hums a yes. “Did he say who?”

“Who you’re dating? He didn’t say.”

Sam sighs. “I didn’t know how to tell you,” he says. He meets Nat’s eyes.

Nat mouths, “If you want to.” Sam nods.

He says into the phone, “How much of the Triskelion coverage and SHIELD trials did you catch, Mom?” and that’s all it takes for her to put the pieces together.

His mother says, “Huh,” and then invites them over for Thanksgiving.

____________

 

Nat’s hair spills like red ink over her pillow the next morning. It tickles Sam’s neck and shoulder and arm, but he doesn’t move. They so rarely get moments like this.

Sunlight makes its way through the window as the clock ticks, drowsy golden light soaking their room and making Nat’s hair burn bright. There’s a strand of her hair that brushes against his nose, and Sam kisses it.

In his arms, she twists around lazily and whaps him with a faceful of hair before going still again. Her breaths whuff when she exhales; he can feel them on his cheek. She scootches toward him.

“Nat?” Sam whispers. She mumbles something, eyes still closed. “You awake?”

She murmurs, “No,” and shifts slightly closer. Sam pulls her in and he falls asleep with his nose pressed to her hair and her hair smells like starlight.

____________

 

Nat hands him a plate with fried eggs and toast and kisses him on the cheek. “You’re sure she doesn’t mind?”

“I’m sure,” Sam says. Nat’s leaning against the countertop wearing his shirt from the day before, and he takes a second to remember this. That they’re here together. She nudges his foot with her own and he’s sure she’s thinking the same.

The countertop presses firm against his lower back. He takes a bite of eggs. “She’s always happier with a full house at Thanksgiving.”

“Even if it’s me?” Nat asks, picking at a string fraying from their hand towel. She doesn’t look at him.

Sam sets down his plate and stands in front of her. He takes her hands and squeezes them gently. “Hey,” he says, his voice soft. “I love you. She’s going to, too.”

Her shoulders shake and he ducks to catch her gaze, letting go of her hands to tilt her face toward him. She lets him. There are tear marks on her cheeks.

Nat says, “I don’t deserve that. You loving me.”

“You don’t have to,” Sam says. He thinks his heart broke, just so slightly. She wipes her face on her sleeve. He asks her to look at him and she does and he says, “I’m going to, always,” and she cries.

____________

 

They swap memories when they can’t fall asleep, when it’s too warm or too early or their minds are too tired to let them sleep easily. This is how Sam knows about her struggle with Italian, about the way her feet hurt during her dancing lessons. She tells him, words sinking through the quiet, about how her feet would hurt worse when wearing combat boots instead of pointe shoes, and he kisses her knuckles while the fan murmurs overhead. They’re quiet for a little after that.

He says, “Have I ever told you about Gideon’s kites,” and it’s an offering and an apology at the same time.

Nat grasps it like it’s a lifeline and her lungs are filling with water. “No,” she says, so he tells her.

She curls against his side and they’re sweat-sticky and it should be the opposite of what he wants right now, probably. Sam should be thinking about how they’ve accumulated so much grime from their mission today, and how even with two showers each their house is too warm and vaguely humid to be comfortable, especially now that she’s pressed against his bare chest. He isn’t. He’s thinking about how her eyes are just a little darker, how her lips are just a little closer to his now.

“I’ve never flown a kite,” Nat whispers. Her eyes flick from his eyes to his mouth and back again.

“Never?” Sam draws out the word, sitting up as he does. She bites her lip, just slightly, and he wants—

“Never,” she breathes, and now she’s straddling him and he kisses her neck and sucks the skin just under her jaw, and God he wants—

Nat pulls back and whispers, “Sam,” and raises her arms. He skims his fingertips around to her back, teasing the skin just above her shorts. She shivers and he flattens his palms on her back and slides them up her back and her shirt rucks up over his wrists. His thumbs graze the underside of her breasts.

Her eyes flash darker. He takes her shirt off.

She presses a hand flat on his chest and pushes until he’s lying down and she’s leaning over him, teasing. Her hair’s in a bun. He wants her hair brushing against his skin.

As if she reads his thoughts, Nat pulls out her hair tie. Her hair slumps down over her shoulders in a clump that still holds the memory of the hair tie. Sam combs through it with his fingers. She takes her time outlining his face with her lips, pressing kisses to his nose, the side of his mouth, the corner of his eye.

His fingers catch on a knot and he laughs a little. Nat tilts her head to the side, kisses a question to his pulse. “What’s funny?” she whispers to his skin.

Sam’s feeling some type of way. “You’ve never flown a kite,” he says. His breath hitches on the word “flown”; her other hand had started making its way down.

She breathes, “You’re thinking about kites, now?”, and then she kisses him senseless.

____________

 

His mother swings the door open before they have the chance to knock. She doesn’t spare any attention to Sam’s knuckles hovering in the air, instead hugging him so tight he’s out of breath. He protests and says something about the casserole dish he’s holding and his mother just laughs. They stay like this, rocking back and forth a bit, for long enough that Sam’s sure his mother’s giving Nat a once-over. He can feel Nat’s uncertainty from where she’s standing beside him.

He and his mother pull apart and Sam says, “Mom, this is Natasha.”

Darlene Wilson’s wearing her appraisal face, the one where her forehead scrunches into tiny furrows. The last time Sam saw this face she was grilling Gideon’s boyfriend about his job. Sam taps his fingers lightly on the casserole dish.

Darlene leans against the doorframe now and addresses Nat: “The Widow.” It’s not a question, and her tone gives nothing away.

“That’s me,” Nat says awkwardly. There’s a pause that weighs heavy underneath Sam’s ribs.

Then Darlene surprises them both by hugging Nat with the same intensity that she hugged Sam. He smiles at them. Nat meets his eyes over his mother’s shoulder, and for a second he thinks she might be about to cry; she’s blinking too fast. But then they separate and her eyes are dry and Darlene is saying to them both, “Welcome home.”

____________

 

The house is brighter and quieter than he remembers. After the whole fiasco with Tony, they’d both been off the grid for a few months; it’s no surprise, then, that he missed the remodelling photos that Darlene had shared on Facebook.

“That’s how the living room used to look,” she says, reading glasses perched low on her nose. She slants the computer so Nat and Sam can see it more easily and points to a tiny greenish square. “It was your father’s choice, that green. He didn’t listen to me when I told him it was hideous and he spent the rest of his waking days complaining about how I never stopped him.”

This pangs deep in Sam’s stomach. “He didn’t complain about it that often,” he says, but only because he knows his mother’s about to say “Every day and twice on Sundays” and Nat laughs when she does.

The living room is a pale blue now because “it feels like flying over D.C. on a clear day and I miss that, don’t you, Sammie?” Darlene clicks to the ‘After’ photo of the living room and tells Nat about how much natural light it gets in the spring and summer.

“It’s beautiful, Mrs. Wilson,” Nat says, leaning down to get a better look of the photo. “The color works very well with the wood.”

His mother says, “Darlene,” and Sam wraps an arm around her shoulders in a cramped kind of hug. She crinkles her eyes at him.

“Darlene,” Nat says. He turns to face her; she had said his mother’s name like it was the most precious thing she’d ever been given.

____________

 

Gideon arrived somewhere between turkey and mixed berry pie with mashed potatoes and Kyle in tow. They’d both seemed a little surprised to see the Black Widow at the table eating stuffing.

Sam hops to his feet the instant his brother’s mouth opens. “Come here?” he asks, in a tone that they both know isn’t exactly a question. Gideon and Kyle follow him into the kitchen, him very aware of Nat’s eyes on his back. The kitchen, at least, is nearly the same as he remembers; the pencil marks charting their growth is still sketched along the length of the wall next to the refrigerator.

“I thought you were joking,” Gideon blurts. Sam shushes him, glancing to make sure Nat and Darlene hadn’t noticed. Nat toasts him wryly when they make eye contact. Sam smiles and ducks back into the kitchen. “Sorry,” his brother whispers.

Kyle runs a hand through his hair. “That’s not really—?” Sam nods. “Oh. _Oh.”_

Sam whispers, “I thought you were gonna tell him?” and Gideon shrugs helplessly. Sam sighs and pinches his nose. “Just. Be nice, okay? And no photos.”

“Sam, this was gonna make me Twitter famous—”

“Gids.”

His brother sighs. “Fine.”

____________

 

They collapse two hours later in front of the TV in a post-Thanksgiving haze. He’s on the new couch listening to Darlene and Gideon and Nat argue the pros and cons of Star Trek versus _Love Actually_ versus Indiana Jones, and his heart is so full. He and Kyle share lazy looks of contentment across the room.

“—never seen Indiana Jones, so,” Nat’s saying now, folding her arms smugly.

Darlene and Gideon stop arguing abruptly and stare at her. “Never?” Darlene asks, incredulous.

“Never,” Nat repeats. She meets Sam’s gaze and winks. He bites his lips dramatically in response, kidding, and she laughs.

Kyle’s already pressing play on the menu screen, freezing Indiana before the giant stone can roll him over. Gideon mumbles something like, “Brought SHIELD crashing down and hasn’t even seen Indiana Jones,” and Kyle squeezes his hand.

It’s nice to see his brother and Kyle like this. Sam smiles.

He and Nat spend the movie having a whispered debate over whether Harrison Ford’s better as Indy or as Han. She says Han, but he reminds her she’s not seen all of _Indiana Jones_ yet. They agree to disagree with maybe twenty minutes left after Gideon and Kyle repeatedly ask them to shut up.

Nat leans against him and he puts an arm around her waist, running his thumb up and down her side. She plays with the fingers on his other hand and kisses his pulse at his wrist. She looks right, here on this somewhat stiff couch, surrounded by the blue of the living room and his mother’s snores. Sam thinks that, maybe, without all of everything else, she still would.

____________

 

“She likes you,” Sam whispers around his toothbrush later. Nat mumbles something unintelligible back, accidentally dribbling toothpaste down her chin. He laughs. She rolls her eyes and elbows him gently before spitting in the sink.

“She’s smart, your mom,” Nat says. “Told me how she met your dad at Harvard, raised you and Gideon on her own after—” She trails off.

Sam swishes water around in his mouth before spitting and saying, “He was a commercial airline pilot. Figured he could make the jump to Air Force easy enough, and did.” Nat nudges his pinky finger with her own. He loops them together. “I was in college when it happened.”

“And you still fly?”

He takes a sip of water to pretend that the subject wasn’t pinching his organs together. It’s been a while, though. He moderates his breathing. “Yeah. He taught me how,” he says, quiet. “We’d get ice cream and go after school.”

Nat fills up the cup he just set down and and downs it in one. He thinks, maybe, that she’s wearing a Widow face. Something a little calculating. “What’s up?”

“Just an idea,” she whispers. There’s a pause wherein Sam realizes they’re breathing in unison. “Thank you.”

They fit nicely together in the mirror. He says, “You don’t have to thank me for anything.”

“I do,” she says simply. She kisses him, long and slow, and tasting of mint, and says against his mouth, “Thank you for sharing your family with me.”

____________

 

“Sam?”

He turns sleepily to face her; he can just make out the curve of her cheekbone. “Hmm?”

“I’d be a ballet teacher, I think. Four and five year olds.”

He mumbles, “Still could,” and she hums like it’s a good idea.

____________

 

Sam wakes up first, so he very carefully wiggles his way out of Nat’s arms and out of bed. She frowns in her sleep at his movement, but he tucks his pillow in her arms and she buries her nose in it and smiles, so he doesn’t feel too bad. He pulls the covers up over her shoulders.

It’s somewhere around 0900, he thinks; the Mickey Mouse clock in his room has long lost battery. The shadows in the hallway make him think it’s still early, anyway. He yawns and stretches, squinting when he steps into the kitchen.

“Morning,” Darlene says, matching jewels together on her StarkPad.

“Morning,” Sam yawns. “Do we have stuff for pancake batter?” Darlene raises an eyebrow. He frowns, then realizes her point. He says, “It’s early, Mom.” She just tuts goodnaturedly.

Soon they’ve got batter on the griddle and eggs and bacon on the stove, and even though the house has changed a little it smells like the Sundays from when he was growing up. His mother has The Temptation’s playing on the radio; they dance around while the food cooks, socks sliding over the tile, and easily fall into their old routine when “Build Me Up Buttercup” comes on.

They’re belting out the final fading note when she says without preamble, “She loves you. You can see it in how she acts around you. Very relaxed, natural.”

Sam chokes on the last note. “Nat? I know. I love her too.”

“I get the feeling she doesn’t relax around everyone.”

He hums in agreement, sliding over to check the pancakes.

Darlene’s forehead scrunches. “You’re good together, you two. Don’t lose her.”

Sam says, “I won’t.”

____________

 

Two weeks after Thanksgiving, Nat’s opening the mudroom door with an armful of cardboard boxes. Sam stares. “What’s all this?”

Her face is red from the cold and from, he thinks, carrying all the boxes. “You remember how you told me about Gideon’s kites? A few weeks ago?” He nods. “Well,” she says, excitement evident in her tone, “I asked him for suggestions.”

“You bought us kites?” Sam clarifies, his voice funny. Nat drops the boxes on the kitchen table and nods.

There must be a strange expression on his face because she sucks in her bottom lip and leans back against the counter, the excitement draining away. “Is that…okay? I can return them. Kept the receipt.”

This is more than okay and he tells her so and walks over to her, taking her hands. She nudges his feet apart and settles her own between them. He shakes his head, breathing out a laugh as he does.

“What’s funny?” she asks. Her voice is still uncertain and that twists in his stomach.

Sam clears his throat. “Not funny, just.” He pauses. Nat tilts her head, waiting. He’s not sure how to explain it. “I don’t know. It’s you and me, here, in our kitchen, with kites piled high on the table and the fact that I can hold your hands like this—” He kisses her knuckles. A smile flits at the corner of her mouth. “—and you’ve met my family, and they love you and I love you and you bought us kites.”

Understanding shines in her eyes now. “We’re normal, is what you mean,” she says. “Or somewhat. Domestic.”

“Who would’ve thought,” Sam says back, except he says this against her lips, and she laughs into his mouth.

____________

 

Some days they fly kites, and these days are the best days. They’re the ones where, sleep-heavy already from dinner or already slightly burned from the sun, they go to the park by their house and set up the kites. Nat holds the spool while Sam runs to get it airborne, and now he knows she always laughs when it catches the wind and jerks out of his hands.

They don’t use all fifteen of the kites she bought, but they always bring them; they’ve learned to have a few handy whenever it’s windy enough. The families who frequent the park are usually on the younger side, and children are fascinated by the kites. Sam runs to get theirs started, too.

Today, Sam comes up behind Nat and rests his chin on her shoulder, and she leans back against him easily. Something underneath his sternum slots into place.

“You know I love you, right?” she murmurs into his ear.

He says, “I’d hope so. Otherwise all these kites would be giving me the wrong idea.”

There’s a pause while Nat readjusts her grip, letting out a little more line. She says, quiet, “I like being here, with you. I never thought we could have this.”

“I’d hoped we could.”

She hums an agreement.

They watch her kite fly in silence, sunlight making the thread look like gold and like her hair’s a living flame. He still likes to kiss her where her neck and throat muscles meet. He does this now, taking his time. She smiles and turns and kisses him back, slow, and he tastes strawberries.

________________________

**Author's Note:**

> I just have a lot of SamNat feelings okay
> 
> Shoutout to [Mercedes](http://skatzaa.tumblr.com) for beta-ing :) and to [Marlee](http://oh-emdee.tumblr.com) for reigniting my love for SamNat. Mercedes' fics are [here](http://archiveofourown.org/users/skatzaa/pseuds/skatzaa/works) and Marlee's are [here](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ohemdee/pseuds/emdeewrites) :) they're pretty darn good writers
> 
> The title is a _Romeo and Juliet_ reference: ["You are a lover; borrow Cupid's wings,/And soar with them above a common bound."](http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/romeo/T14.html) My ship name for them is "on love's light wings" (another _R &J_ reference), but I wasn't sure which to use here - think I'll save the latter for a fic more centered on flying, should that fic arise
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'm on tumblr, [come say hi :)](http://untiltheendofthelinebuck.tumblr.com)


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